April Update

I don’t have a new version of ArmCom2 ready to show off, but I have been making some changes over the past few weeks. Most important of these is shifting the core gameplay from a platoon-based system back to individual tanks and squads as in the original ArmCom. This means that the player will again take control of a single tank with its crew, and will have a small number of other tanks in their squadron that will be AI-controlled but which follow the player around and serve as extra guns and extra targets. I agree that the experience of commanding a tank and its crew is the element of ArmCom that makes it special, so I’m working to recapture that experience in ArmCom2. Right now I have the basic tank functionality working, and will add in crew orders and actions next. My plan is to have the crew act intelligently to player commands, so that the player will only need to change their order if they want to do something out of the ordinary. The player will be able to move and fire with their tank and the crew will perform the tasks required of them, but if there’s a main gun malfunction then you’ll need to intervene to order a crewmember to repair it. I’m also drawing upon my experience with the first game to design a system that is more flexible: for example, crewmembers will be able to move to different positions in the tank as needed, if for example a crewmate is incapacitated.

I have a busy couple of weeks coming up, but hopefully soon after that I will have a new Proof of Concept version for players to try out.